A breeze in Little Surrey
by Opheliac
Summary: Summer after GoF. A little vignette/character study of Harry with Sirius's help.


Author's Notes: I know this is a bit belated, but: YYYYEAAAAAAHHH!!!!!!! 5-2 CANADA!  
GRRRRR!!!!!!!! ::does a little dance:: Who has the best mens AND women's hockey teams in  
THE WORLD??????? OOOOOOOHHHH CCCCCAAANNNADAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!  
HUH!!!!!!  
This has been to date the hardest piece of prose I've written. God, I never thought it  
would be so hard to express desensitization... Anyways, It was really hard and I'm still not happy  
with it, but go ahead and give me your opinion. And this is a vignette, by the way. Just a stand  
alone character study.   
::cough:: Special thanks goes out to Rabbit, nik chik, Lady Feylene, Prophetess Of  
Hearts, franthephoenix,Tidmag and Gen Raid, and an anonymous reviewer only signed as  
"me". Reviews greatly appreciated! PS. My last fic, The Wind, was a vignette: Therefore, there  
is no more. There's not supposed to be: It was just a character study. Thanx. Read and enjoy! ;)  
  
  
A breeze in Little Surrey  
  
It was rather cold for a summer night in little Surrey: breezy, really. Harry Potter couldn't  
have cared less. He knew that he wanted to care. But knowing and feeling are two different  
things, and Harry Potter hadn't felt anything in a long time.  
It was almost midnight, he knew from the position of the crescent moon in the sky. He  
had gotten very good at this over the summer: It was obvious by his haggard appearance that he  
was doing his damnedest not to sleep at all. To sleep, perchance to dream. And when Harry  
slept, he dreamt. Always, nightmares of the most chilling and horrifying manner. And what was  
the most horrifying aspect was they were all true: Every single unforgivable spell, every single  
drop of blood, every single thump as the body hit the ground with a sort of finality. It wasn't so  
much the fear of Vernon Dursley's wrath when Harry woke up the house with his screams. No, it  
was definitely the dreams.   
But you couldn't spend a whole month not sleeping. Make no mistake, Harry had done  
very well so far. But lately Harry was beginning to wonder what was worse, the night visions or  
the exhaustion and the extra time to mull over the more horrifying pieces of his past— like  
Cedric. There were plenty more, though.  
Tonight, though, Harry was getting a welcome distraction: Sirius Black was coming to  
visit.   
Quietly, he slipped of the sheets and padded to the open window. As he pulled himself  
out onto the roof his movements were slow, methodical, and precise: almost disconcerting to see  
someone so young move with such carefulness that accompanies maturity and experience but  
with none of the energy or litheness that accompanies youth. His pyjamas (not Dudley's hand-  
me-downs: Harry had had the gall to bring his own back this year that fit properly) weren't warm  
enough, but he made no visible reaction. Sirius was already there, a monstrous canine silhouette  
in the moonlight. Slowly the silhouette stretched and malformed into a grotesque hump, and then  
unfolded to reveal the unmistakable form of a very human Sirius Black.   
  
"Hullo Harry." His whisper was low and guttural, rough from unuse.   
Harry padded up the tiled roof to sit by Sirius, who leaned in to embrace Harry with his  
worn cloak.   
"You look cold." He said gently. Harry didn't answer: only staring listlessly back at  
Sirius, searching for something.   
"What's wrong?"   
He couldn't answer nothing. It wasn't nothing: It was everything.  
"I..." he mouthed silently, staring at the barely visible sandpaper tiles. His emotions were  
a wave ready to breach: building up for a whole month with no one to share them with they had  
become a raging tsunami heading to land. Harry's world for the past month had consisted of the  
nightmares, the depression, memories of the last Tri-wizard challenge playing over and over,   
the Durley's usual abuse, and the knowledge that he was slowly going numb. Throughout all of  
this he had been left horribly, utterly alone with himself, the one person he did not want to have  
to deal with. Harry Potter had thankfully stopped caring long ago.  
A sudden calmness— no, numbness washed over him. Something pushed the tsunami  
back down to the dark recesses of his mind where it continued to churn forcefully. But instead of  
being swept out by the tide, he watched his own emotions discontentedly from far away.   
He brought his eyes up to meet Sirius's, disinterested, detached. The Wall was up.  
"Hullo, Sirius."  
Sirius was almost startled by the blase welcome: He frowned at Harry, puzzled, squinting  
through stringy strands of hair. He paused.   
"I just came up from Berlin. Scouting for the Order and such. There's quite a cell of  
Death-eaters over there. Not you can tell by the news, though: things have been deceptively  
quiet. They're gathering you know. There've been bodies already, though..." he trailed off, still  
watching from beneath furrowed brow.   
"I know."  
Now Sirius was surprised. "How?"  
Harry broke his blank gaze and stared at his fingers.   
"Well, it just makes sense I guess."   
Now, his godfather was not just a bit suspicious. "Uh-huh. What's wrong, Harry?"  
"Nothing." Never had anything so blunt nor so hollow cut so sharp.   
There was silence for a minute, as if he was deciding something. Then, he spoke, voice  
ringing hollowly in the crisp night air. "Look, I'm just tired, okay? Maybe this wasn't such a  
good idea: You should go."  
But as he turned to get up he was viciously yanked back down. A very surprised Harry  
Potter found himself in the powerful grip and under the scorching gaze of a furious Sirius Black.  
"I just walked and hitchhiked a thousand kilometers to get here. I haven't slept in ages,  
and the best meal I've had this week is beatles and cabbage. I could have gotten caught by the  
muggle police or the magical ministry or Death-Eaters—"  
"Well, you shouldn't have come—"  
"Look at me!" Sirius hissed, shaking Harry roughly. "I don't care about any of that. I've  
done it before, I'll do it again. I don't even care that my only family in the world just gave me  
what could be described kindly as a frigid welcome. What bothers me is you, Harry. I know  
you're in a bad state right now, but you've got to snap out of it. It'll change you if you let it."  
"I can't!" Tears were threatening to spill over the wall: that beautiful, delicate wall of  
glass and ice that he could watch the world through without getting hurt. "I can't, I can't, I can't!   
Sirius I can't remember the last time I cared about anything! Happiness is this thing I vaguely  
remember as part of my past. I feel like I'm dying—"  
"Bloody hell, Harry, if anyone understands, its me! How about it, huh? Three of my best  
friends killed and I'm thrown in Azkaban for life for it! Twelve fucking years of hell! And you  
kept me alive! You were that one bloody thing— and I never gave up!" He softened. "There are  
still good things in life. I know this. And there are still people who care about you. And you  
know this. You just have to remember that."  
The tide had risen and the wall, overwhelmed by the vast ocean, shattered. A dry, tired  
sob ripped through him. He gave in to the current, burying his face in the warm, musty crook of  
Sirius's arm. He felt safe, he felt warm, he felt tired. Hot, belated tears formed and escaped,  
running in rivulets down his face. He felt. For the first time in weeks he felt something. It was an  
experience in itself to realize how much he missed, how much he cared about Sirius, to  
remember that there was still something to care for.  
"How are you holding up, hm?" The sound of Sirius's voice was soothing, almost  
blending in with the background noise of buzzing crickets and distant traffic.   
Harry sighed. "I want-" he murmured, then changed his mind. "I wish I was with you, or  
at the Burrow or any place but here."  
"Is it that bad?" The question was tinged with concern and not a bit of anger.   
"I, no. It's more the circumstances... what happened, what's happening. And I'm... alone  
here. I was having dreams, so I stopped sleeping. But if I don't sleep, I think... about..." Harry  
stopped: he was having trouble concentrating on what he was saying.  
Sirius didn't even need him to clarify. He could see it in those tired green eyes. "I'll talk  
to Dumbledore about the dreams and about staying at the Burrow for a bit, shall I?"  
Harry nodded into Sirius's grubby shirt, and paused, looking up. "Sirius, how have you  
been?"   
Sirius gazed back unblinkingly, searching Harry's face as if reminding himself of  
something. "Better. A lot better... But when I see you this way..."  
"What way?"  
Sirius ran his hand forcefully through his shaggy main. "I know that life is difficult right  
now: I can see it in your eyes. There's that deadened, glassy look—" he shifted suddenly,  
angrily. "It's not fair." He paused. "Harry, I know what it's like to just let yourself go numb,  
because that's the only thing you can do to save yourself from what looks like a life of horror  
and anguish, but...   
He broke off, looking away. "I don't want— I can't have you turning out like me. Don't  
you see? That's what I'm fighting for. So you won't be—"  
"Ruined? Tainted? Hollow? Dead?" Harry's voice was filled with irony and self-loathing  
and not a bit of bitterness. He shook his head. "It's so hard." he murmured. "So afraid, so  
lonely..." And then came the sigh.  
They sat in silence for a while. Harry's breath grew slow and labored, but he was quiet,  
and a smile graced his tired face. His body relaxed and went slack, and his legs were splayed out  
comfortably across the roof tiles. For the first time that summer, Harry Potter slept. 


End file.
